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Modern Imperialism: Canadian Renditions to Torture and the Production of Impunity for Sovereign Racialized State Violence

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Modern Imperialism: Canadian Renditions to Torture and the Production of Impunity for Sovereign Racialized State Violence MODERN IMPERIALISM: CANADIAN RENDITIONS TO TORTURE AND THE PRODUCTION OF IMPUNITY FOR SOVEREIGN RACIALIZED STATE VIOLENCE ANKE ALLSPACH A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIOLOGY, YORK UNIVERISTY TORONTO, ONTARIO May 2016 © Anke Allspach, 2016 ABSTRACT This dissertation focusses on four Muslim Canadian men, Ahmed Elmaati, Abduallah Almalki, Maher Arar and Muayyed Nureddin, and how their renditions to torture were organized by Canadian state officials and explained to the public through the Arar Commission Report (2006) and the Iacobucci Inquiry Report (2008) in ways that makes racism compatible with liberal values. This dissertation traces in a Foucaultian sense diverse forms of power, such as sovereign- discipline-governmentality, through which Islamic fundamental terrorist identities were imprinted onto the bodies of these four men. I conceptualize torture as a form of sovereign racialized violence that was organized around the men’s citizenship rights and Canada’s national narrative as multicultural liberal democracy. The torture to coerce false confession included individual, group and national identity transformations that were reproduced at a discursive level through the government inquiries. In fact, the men’s bodies became the referential sites for producing political legitimacy for racially repressive laws and policing practices symbolic of cultural ordering. I contend that Canadian renditions to torture constitute a form of modern imperialism whereby white settler domination in Canada was reproduced through practices such as racialized policing, criminalization without evidence, indefinite detentions and deportations, that were legitimized through the transnational organized production of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist identities. The production of the four men as Islamic fundamentalist terrorists operated through sovereign forms of racialized state violence as well as (self) disciplinary processes that de-territorialized torture from the Canadian geopolitical context to Syria and Egypt and included the men in the process of rendition and torture. Through the outsourcing of torture, ‘the Orient’ is Orientalized and the narrative of Canada as a multicultural liberal democracy can be sustained while simultaneously implementing racially repressive laws as necessary practices in the fight against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my life partner Dr. Shoshana Pollack. Without her love, support, interest and understanding this work would not have been possible. Especially, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Carmela Murdocca and my friend and colleague Dr. Fenn Stewart who supported this work and stood by me through life difficulties. Thank you to my supervisory committee Dr. Tania Das Gupta, Dr. Guida Man and the defense team Dr. Sherene Razack, Dr. Alison Crosby and Dr. Livy Visano who offered helpful guidance at different stages of this project. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and families in Germany and Canada for the sustained interest and support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................................... iii Abbreviations and Acronyms ........................................................................................................................................ iv INTRODUCTION: RENDITIONS TO TORTURE TO COERCE FALSE CONFESSIONS ...................................... 1 “I Am Not a Terrorist” ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Background: The United States Program of Extraordinary Rendition .................................................................... 5 Analytical Context ………………………………………………………………………………………………14 Critical Race Feminist Theorizations of Torture ..………………………………………………………………17 Investigating Canadian Renditions to Torture…….……………………………………………………………..21 Chapter Organization ……………………………………………………………………………………………24 CHAPTER 1: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODS ............................................................................ 27 Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................................................................... 27 Intersectionality .............................................................................................................................................. 29 Power/Knowledge and Sovereignty-Discipline-Governmentality ................................................................ 30 Sovereign Power ............................................................................................................................................. 32 Disciplinary Power ......................................................................................................................................... 35 Biopolitics ....................................................................................................................................................... 40 Governmentality ............................................................................................................................................. 41 Racialization ................................................................................................................................................... 48 Canadian White Settler Colonialism and Multiculturalism ................................................................................... 55 Colonization, Racialization, Criminalization and Deportation ...................................................................... 59 Data Sources .......................................................................................................................................................... 63 Commissions of Inquiry ................................................................................................................................. 65 The Arar Commission of Inquiry (2004–2006) .............................................................................................. 68 The Iacobucci Inquiry (2006–2008) ............................................................................................................... 73 Methods: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and Stuart Hall’s Politics of Representation ..................................... 76 CHAPTER 2: CANADIAN BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................. 83 The Gentle Giant and the Giant Empire ................................................................................................................ 88 George W. Bush: The Spectre of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism ............................................................ 94 Jean Chrétien: The Biopolitics of “Racializing Crime and Criminalizing Race” .......................................... 95 Canadian Risk Figures: Islamic Fundamentalism and American Imperialism .............................................. 98 The Legalization and Financing of the “Criminalization of Race” ..................................................................... 106 The “Security Budget” and Racialized Policing………………………………………………………….. 108 The Criminal Code ...................................................................................................................................... 110 The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Security Certificates ..................................................... 114 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................................. 119 CHAPTER 3: CANADIAN RENDITIONS TO TORTURE ..................................................................................... 121 The Production and Distribution of Racial T/Lies .............................................................................................. 129 Ahmad Abou-Elmaati ................................................................................................................................... 132 Abdullah Almalki ......................................................................................................................................... 134 Maher Arar and Monia Mazigh .................................................................................................................... 135 Muayyed Nureddin ....................................................................................................................................... 136 Canadian Citizenship Rights as a Liability .......................................................................................................... 142 Ahmad Abou-Elmaati ................................................................................................................................... 142 Abdullah Almalki ......................................................................................................................................... 146 Maher Arar ..................................................................................................................................................
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